Monday, February 22, 2010

Exclusive Muqata Photos: The "Personal" Mechitza"

The Jerusalem Post broke the story yesterday that Ultra-Orthodox chareidi passengers are being advised by the Rabbinical Council for Public Transportation to adopt a new type of mehtiza when flying.

"The Rabbinical Council for Public Transportation, which is also representing the haredi community on the issue of gender-segregated “mehadrin” buses, is now placing advertisements in haredi newspapers encouraging the community to purchase the traveler mehitzas.

The new mehitzas, made of white nylon, stick onto the fabric of the airplane chair using Velcro and can be arranged to make a protective “shield.” The mehitza goes around the head and is mostly in front of the passenger’s face, protruding only a little to the sides. Its designer, who asked that his name not be published, declined to share pictures and his design details, but said the mehitzas were “airy” and did not bother anybody.

“They’re very nice,” said Rabbi Shimon Stern, spokesman for the Rabbinic Council for Public Transportation. “Very cute. It’s very practical.”

The mehitzas are designed to be portable and fit into a small box, which passengers can bring on the plane.

The airplane mehitzas come in the wake of other recent steps by the haredi community to avoid immodesty, such as the mehadrin bus lines and separate-sex sidewalks in Jerusalem’s Geula neighborhood.

Stern said the main reason for the latest recommendation was to enable haredi passengers to block out in-flight movies. Television sets are banned in haredi communities, and movies are forbidden. In aircraft with large movie screens, it is difficult to avoid watching the films."

Instead of publicizing the story right away, the Muqata blog seriously investigated this issue and is the first blog to have an actual picture of these new personal mechitzas!

Smuggled out of ELAL's PR offices, we have obtained an unauthorized copy of the soon to be released ELAL PR campaign:

(This guy is wearing jeans...obviously this campaign flyer is directed atMTA students who wear tefillin while flying)

Despite the monopoly on the personal mechitza, Global Superstore IKEA has decided to drop their prices and are marketing their version of the personal mechitza all over the world.

IKEA's collapsible and portable (yet stylish) "Fyllen" (Swedish for Personal Mechitza?) is now being marketed everywhere.Passengers flying on Purim will be able to try out these personal mechitzas, and decide for themselves if they are truly revolutionary.

The following options were rejected and deemed "inappropriate" by the Rabbinic Council for Public Transportation for a variety of reasons.

hat-tip: Everyone who sent in the JPost article...

Going to Israel?Now get 2 phones for the price of 1 (and free calls too) with Talk'n'Save.

I say this in the most polite way possible. If they truly believe that they're being corrupted by merely being in the same vicinity of members of the opposite sex, they either need to get the money together and charter their own flights and buses or deal with what's around them and stop trying to enforce their beliefs on the state and those around them. You have to live in the real world. Deal with it!-OC

I think personal mechitzas are a good idea. The need is obvious, especially in view of the fact that flying without the mechitzas for decades has caused many abominations in the Charedi community, for example, the establishment of the Rabbinic Council for Public Transportation.

This rav of mine in highschool had this amazing personal mehitza. He carried it everywhere. It was very cool. You could use it both to block out the world and to study from at the same time. He used it often. He actually had many of them, with different names. They all had the same first name though... Masechet...

Why don't they simply encourage burqas for men (called something else, of course, lest they shun them for fear of wearing women's attire), with a very large built in trap door for lunch, and those little car deodorizers, so they don't pass out from (lunch) fumes,in a nice light weight washable fabric and I could go on and on and on.

Why don't they simply encourage burqas for men (called something else, of course, lest they shun them for fear of wearing women's attire), with a very large built in trap door for lunch, and those little car deodorizers, so they don't pass out from (lunch online generic viagra) fumes, in a nice light weight washable fabric and I could go on and on and on.